Aim: To evaluate an individually tailored oral health educational programme (ITOHEP) on periodontal health compared with a standard oral health educational programme. A further aim was to evaluate whether both interventions had a clinically significant effect on non-surgical periodontal treatment at 12-month follow-up.
Material and Method: A randomized, evaluator-blinded, controlled trial with 113 subjects (60 females and 53 males) randomly allocated into two different active treatments was used. ITOHEP was based on cognitive behavioural principles and motivational interviewing. The control condition was standard oral hygiene education (ST). The effect on bleeding on probing (BoP), periodontal pocket depth, “pocket closure” i.e. percentage of periodontal pocket >4 mm before treatment that were <5 mm after treatment, oral hygiene [plaque indices (PlI)], and participants' global rating of oral health was evaluated. Preset criteria for PlI, BoP, and “pocket closure” were used to describe clinically significant non-surgical periodontal treatment success.
Results: The ITOHEP group had lower BoP scores 12-month post-treatment (95% confidence interval: 5–15, p<0.001) than the ST group. No difference between the two groups was observed for “pocket closure” and reduction of periodontal pocket depth. More individuals in the ITOHEP group reached a level of treatment success. Lower PlI scores at baseline and ITOHEP intervention gave higher odds of treatment success.
Conclusions: ITOHEP intervention in combination with scaling is preferable to the ST programme in non-surgical periodontal treatment.